Army-Navy game sums up 2020
Dreadful with a side of thick fog about covers it
The thick fog that hovered over Michie Stadium at West Point Saturday afternoon did every Navy fan a favor. It hid the giant mess that epitomized Midshipmenfootball and everything else in 2020.
In a season chock-full of low points, it’s hard to imagine anything worse than the 15-0 loss to Army that, unless the Mids attend a bowl game, capped a dreadful year on and off the gridiron. The stats alone are eye-popping. Navy’s offense has scored 13 points — total
— in its last three games. On Saturday, the Mids got four first-downs and gained just 117 yards of total offense. They converted one thirddown conversion in 11 tries and failed on both fourthdown tries, including one at the goal line that sunk Navy.
Xavier Arline, just the fifth plebe to start at quarterback against Army, had 17 carries for 109 yards, 52 of which came on one run. Navy did next to nothing aside from that.
This Navy football season simply never got on track or found a rhythm. It started in training camp, when 13th-year head coach Ken Niumatalolo understandably erred on the side of caution amid the pandemic and had only noncontact practices. But it didn’t take more than two days after being blown out 55-3 by BYU on Labor Day to revert to normal and resume hitting. This is football, after all.
In hindsight, perhaps losing that month in August sealed Navy’s fate. But I’d argue that excuse has gone out the window when you see the three-game stretch the defensive unit put together and how defensive coordinator Brian Newberry suddenly turned everything he touched into gold.
If it weren’t for the defense, which frankly played another outstanding game in holding Army to 134 rushing yards and 162 total, this result could’ve been historically bad. Even worse than the 27-0 shutout in 1969, the last time the Black Knights achieved such a feat.
This nightmare falls on the shoulders of the offense and the quarterback carousel. Magnifying the issue is that “he who shall not be named” — offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper grew tired of mentioning Malcolm Perry this week — just a year ago lit the world on fire and set an NCAArecord for most rushing yards by a quarterback in a season with 2,017. The encore for his successors? 287. Total. Rushing. Yards. This. SEASON! That includes Arline’s 109 on Saturday. As a millennial, I’m shakin’ my damn head.
Big picture, this wasn’t a stunning result. There were signs this may be coming earlier in the season against Air Force, which was another demolition (40-7 loss) at the hands of a service academy. That at least came two weeks after the greatest comeback in Navy history against Tulane. Doesn’t that feel like a lifetime ago?
No, it may not be historically bad. After all, Navy also beat Temple in a thrilling game in front of the Brigade of Midshipmen, and then East Carolina the following week. The Mids were 3-2!
Then came Houston and SMU. Then came the virus. That damned virus.
Two players tested positive for COVID-19 after the SMU game in early November, resulting in the postponement of games against Tulsa and Memphis (which were both eventually rescheduled). The contest with South Florida never was.
It was those two games against American Athletic Conference opponents where the offense vanished while the defense collectively turned into a shiny new toy.
The Mids managed just a single touchdown in a 10-7 loss to Memphis. They never found the end zone against Tulsa in a 19-6 defeat, snapping a 17-game winning streak on Senior Day. When asked what he learned from this experience, Arline, who failed to win a game as a starter, said, “Coach Niumat says every single week it is hard to win. It is hard to win. It’s hard to win.”
Indeed, it is.
For now, however, it’s time to flush everything about the 2020 season down the toilet and never hear from it again.